Archive for the ‘Moroccan Recipes’ Category

A visit to Marrakech is not complete until you’ve sampled at least a few of the delicious traditional Moroccan dishes served all over the Ochre City. Here are some of our favourite must-try Moroccan dishes.

6 Must-Try Moroccan Dishes

B’ssara – The first of our must-try Moroccan dishes is B’ssara, a rich soup made from dried broad beans. Traditionally a breakfast dish, this scrumptious soup is usually topped with a sprinkling of cumin, a swirl of olive oil and served with oven-fresh bread.

Tagines – The tagine, a clay cooking pot with a conical lid, lends its name to a multitude of simply delicious traditional dishes (chicken, lamb, beef, fish and vegetable) as popular at top-notch restaurants as roadside cafes.

Featuring well-seasoned meatballs in spicy tomato sauce, Kefta Mkaouara is a wonderful example of traditional Moroccan cuisine. Here’s how to make it.

In traditional Moroccan cuisine, Kefta Mkaouara is a classic dish prepared in a tagine (although you can also use a wide, deep skillet with lid). To make it, you will need the following ingredients (tsp = teaspoon/s; tbsp. = tablespoon/s).

Typically served on a large platter as a mound of semolina with the meat and vegetables placed with their broth into the central crater, this delightful dish provides a scrumptious taste of Morocco. Traditionally accompanied by bowls of the remaining broth, small dishes of harissa and varying other condiments, it is eaten by forming balls of the food in the hand.

Used mainly by Moroccans in elaborate, celebratory dishes, the aromatic, complex spice blend known as Rass, or Ras El Hanout (literally translated as ‘head, or top, of the shop’), is prepared by grinding together two dozen or more whole spices and dried leaves/roots .

Ingredients of Ras El Hanout recipe

Every shop and spice merchant has his own ‘secret’ recipe for this delightful blend but, as a rule, it will contain a mix of:

The M’rouzia is a delicious Moroccan tagine combining lamb, raisins, honey and almonds and a selection of herbs and spices, including Ras El Hanout, to make a deliciously sweet and spicy dish. Here is a M’rouzia recipe for serving six people:

How to make couscous the traditional way – The Couscoussier, a vital Utensil in Traditional Moroccan Cooking.

Many recipes for Moroccan dishes involve the preparation of couscous or vegetables in couscoussiers. Prepared in the traditional manner it is a time consuming process! Here is a brief explanation of this cooking utensil and how to make couscous the traditional way.

The Couscoussier

Traditionally in ceramic or metal (aluminium, copper or steel), couscoussiers comprise two interlocking pots. The larger bottom pot is used to cook broths, stews or soups (although it is also common to fill it with water for use as a steamer) while the smaller upper pot has a perforated base with a lid. Placed on top of the larger pot it is used to steam couscous or vegetables.

Steaming Couscous

Traditionally, couscous is steamed over stews etc, simmering away in the lower part of a couscoussier. The steaming process typically involves two or three stages.

Stage 1 – the first stage of steaming couscous involves dampening it by placing it into a bowl, sprinkling it with slightly salted water and/ or oil and evenly mixing the grains with hands that have first been rubbed in oil, breaking up any lumps that may have formed.

While Moroccan meals typically conclude with a helping of fresh fruit (figs, dates, oranges with cinnamon), or just a mint tea, the most common dessert is a selection of classic Moroccan patisseries, notable among them being Kaab el Ghazal, or gazelle horns. Flavoured with cinnamon and orange blossom water, they consist of a scented almond paste wrapped in delicate pastry, moulded into a crescent shape and baked until just golden. Here is the recipe.

Making Almond Paste

To make these delicious little sweetmeats, you need first to create the almond paste. For this, you will need the following ingredients (enough to make 50 ‘gazelle horns’).

500 g (1 lb) skinned, blanched almonds

275 g (1 1/3 cups) sugar

75 ml (1/3 cup) orange blossom water

60 g (1/4 cup) melted, unsalted butter

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Gum Arabic or mastic powder (optional)

Grind the almonds in a food processor for about five minutes and then mould the resulting mix into a paste. Using your fingers to mix them thoroughly, add the remaining ingredients into the paste, adding extra cinnamon, sugar and/or orange flower water to produce the desired flavour. Shape small portions of this paste into sticks, each roughly the size of the little finger; cover and place them into the fridge.

Couscous is a versatile staple of Moroccan cuisine. It comes in two forms, the standard ‘as-nature-intended’ version or pre-steamed, although the latter, despite being easy and quick to make, tends to lose some of its flavour in the process. Here’s how to make perfect couscous, Marrakech style.

To make this dish one really needs a couscoussier, a perforated steamer, although a fine colander may suffice.

1) Moisten the couscous by adding ½ cup of water to 3 cups of medium grain couscous. Leave the couscous to absorb the water for 10 minutes.

2) Repeat this process. Each grain should now be swollen and you should be able to pass each through your fingers without lumps!

3) Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the couscous.

4) Bring a pan of water to the boil and steam the couscous on medium heat for 20 minutes.

Bread, in some form or other, is served with most meals in Morocco. In Marrakech, as everywhere else in the country, it is normal to prepare bread at home each morning and then have it baked in the traditional manner at one of many communal ovens in the neighbourhood.

One particularly tasty type of speciality bread made in Morocco and other North African countries is Khobz Bishemar, a wholewheat flatbread made with a blend of spices and herbs and filled with beef suet and onions.

Here is a simple and delicious recipe for it which you might wish to try.

You may have heard of it but what is it? As our article ‘What is Pastilla?’ explains, a Pastilla is a sweet and savoury Moroccan pie, most commonly filled with pigeon meat, dusted with icing sugar.

If you can’t get hold off pigeon you can substitute with chicken. There are also dessert versions. Here’s a simple Pastilla recipe for the most popular version of this traditional Moroccan dish, for the perfect pastilla. Ingredients